The Development of Reference to Space in a Narrative Task of a Spanish/English Bilingual Child from the Age of 7 to 11.

Alvarez, Esther A.

This study followed a child born in a bilingual (English and Spanish) family who had daily exposure to both languages since birth. The study examined how bilingual acquisition proceeded in this child who was receiving different, often contradictory, cues from the structure of the two languages. The family lived in Barcelona, Spain, and the child attended a British English school. Spanish was his strongest language. Researchers used a picture book story to elicit responses and examine his development of reference to space and spatial relations. Sessions were taped yearly from age 6 years 11 months to age 10 years 11 months (first in English, then in Spanish 10 days later). Analysis of transcriptions indicated that for this bilingual child, development of the expression of movement was different in the two languages. He lagged behind in the use of manner verbs and combinations of movement verb + satellite in English, and he compensated for this by using deictic verbs. Change of location verbs have a stronger influence in English in than in Spanish when using the indefinite article for the first mention of inanimate objects. However, in both languages, the encoding of characters' movements did not receive adequate attention in his narratives. (SM)